Mary Collins (April 18, 1846 - May 25, 1920) was a missionary, writer, and proponent for Native American rights in the Dakota Territory of the United States of America. She was a prolific member of the American Missionary Association, having spent thirty-five years of her life living amongst the Sioux tribe acting as a teacher, translator, and diplomat between the Sioux and white settlers. [1] She was a noted friend and correspondent of Sitting Bull, one of the most famous Native Americans in United States history. Despite her actions and lifelong commitment to peaceful relations with the Sioux, Collins is a relatively unknown character in American history.
Mary Clementine Collins was born in 1846 to Ephraim and Margaret Collins, in the town of Upper Alton, Illinois. Her father was a Northerner, and her mother a Southerner. Both her parents were children of American Revolutionary War veterans. Collins credited her ancestry, along with the physical training of her brothers, with providing her with the "pioneer spirit" that came to define her life. She rode horses, boated, climbed trees, and lifted weights alongside her brothers. [1]
At the age of two, Collins moved with her family to Keokuk, Iowa, a small town in the southeastern part of the state. Keokuk was known for its neutrality between White and Native settlers. Here she attended a mix of public and private schools on her way to receiving a Master of Arts from Ripon College in Wisconsin.
Collins' religious training and interest in missionary work began at an early age, when she began attending church and Sabbath School. In her publication How I Became A Missionary, Collins states that her Sabbath school teacher introduced her to and trained her for her future calling. [1]
Collins was first called to missionary work in 1875 by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. She wished to work in the Micronesia island territories in the western Pacific Ocean, but she failed to pass the required medical exam because of a lung condition. [1] She was asked instead to serve as a missionary to the Native Americans in the Dakota territory, arriving at her post on November 10, 1875.
Collins was quick to adapt to the language, claiming she had no trouble in seeing the Native American side of any question. She enjoyed a relatively high status amongst the tribe due to her knowledge of medicine, which gave her privileges not typically granted. [1] She was also a source of counsel and knowledge on domestic affairs, religious problems, and legal questions. During her time on the Reservation, she also served as a lecturer on behalf of the Native American way of life at universities, public schools, churches, and conferences.
Sitting Bull, the tribal chief of the Lakota Sioux at the end of the 19th century, was introduced to Collins some time in 1885 (nine years after his victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn). She impressed him almost immediately with her command of the Lakota language, and for this he considered her a relative.
American historian and biographer Stanley Vestal states in his biography Sitting Bull: Champion of the Sioux that Collins "knew him better than almost any other white person at the agency." [2] Her close relationship with Sitting Bull, along with her quest for peaceful cooperation between both Natives and the expanding white settlements, led her to ask Sitting Bull to stop encouraging the Ghost Dance, which was believed to have contributed to Lakota resistance. This dance was seen as a threat by U.S. Army troops and policemen sent to the Dakota region, who misinterpreted the dance as a prelude to armed attack. Sitting Bull and his tribe persisted, and on December 15, 1890, Sitting Bull was arrested, and subsequently shot and killed in the ensuing mayhem. Following the Wounded Knee Massacre later that month, the practice of Ghost Dancing was outlawed. [3]
In 1910, failing health compelled Collins to give up her work in the field with the Sioux. She returned to Keokuk to live with her sister (there is no evidence that Collins ever married). Illness set in during the early summer of 1919, and confined Collins to her bed until her death in 1920.
In Keokuk, she had continued to be an active member of the American Missionary Association. Her writings, many of them in the Dakota language, remained an important part of Dakota culture long after her death. Frank White, a representative of the American Missionary Association, paid tribute to her life by characterizing her as "pioneer in the nth power." [1] Many of her correspondences, including her own autobiography and will, are held in the South Dakota State Historical Society. [4]
The Arapaho are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota.
The Lakota are a Native American people. Also known as the Teton Sioux, they are one of the three prominent subcultures of the Sioux people, with the Eastern Dakota (Santee) and Western Dakota (Wičhíyena). Their current lands are in North and South Dakota. They speak Lakȟótiyapi—the Lakota language, the westernmost of three closely related languages that belong to the Siouan language family.
The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples. Collectively, they are the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, or "Seven Council Fires". The term "Sioux", an exonym from a French transcription of the Ojibwe term Nadowessi, can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or to any of the nation's many language dialects.
Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance against United States government policies. Sitting Bull was killed by Indian agency police accompanied by U.S. officers and supported by U.S. troops on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation during an attempt to arrest him at a time when authorities feared that he would join the Ghost Dance movement.
The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, was the deadliest mass shooting in American history, involving nearly three hundred Lakota people shot and killed by soldiers of the United States Army. The massacre, part of what the U.S. military called the Pine Ridge Campaign, occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, following a botched attempt to disarm the Lakota camp. The previous day, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside approached Spotted Elk's band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them five miles westward to Wounded Knee Creek, where they made camp. The remainder of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel James W. Forsyth, arrived and surrounded the encampment. The regiment was supported by a battery of four Hotchkiss mountain guns. The Army was catering to the anxiety of settlers who called the conflict the Messiah War and were worried the Ghost Dance signified a potentially dangerous Sioux resurgence. Historian Jeffrey Ostler wrote in 2004, "Wounded Knee was not made up of a series of discrete unconnected events. Instead, from the disarming to the burial of the dead, it consisted of a series of acts held together by an underlying logic of racist domination."
Red Cloud was a leader of the Oglala Lakota from 1865 to 1909. He was one of the most capable Native American opponents whom the United States Army faced in the western territories. He led the Lakota to victory over the United States during Red Cloud's War, establishing the Lakota as the only nation to defeat the United States on American soil. The largest action of the war was the 1866 Fetterman Fight, with 81 US soldiers killed; it was the worst military defeat suffered by the US Army on the Great Plains until the Battle of the Little Bighorn 10 years later.
The Sioux Wars were a series of conflicts between the United States and various subgroups of the Sioux people which occurred in the later half of the 19th century. The earliest conflict came in 1854 when a fight broke out at Fort Laramie in Wyoming, when Sioux warriors killed 31 American soldiers in the Grattan Massacre, and the final came in 1890 during the Ghost Dance War.
The Ghost Dance War was the military reaction of the United States government against the spread of the Ghost Dance movement on Lakota Sioux reservations in 1890 and 1891. The U.S. Army designation for this conflict was Pine Ridge Campaign. White settlers called it the Messiah War. Lakota Sioux reservations were occupied by the U.S. Army, causing fear, confusion, and resistance among the Lakota. It resulted in the Wounded Knee Massacre wherein the 7th Cavalry killed over 250 Lakota, primarily unarmed women, children, and elders, at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. The end of the Ghost Dance War is usually dated January 15, 1891, when Lakota Ghost-Dancing leader Kicking Bear decided to meet with US officials. However, the U.S. government continued to use the threat of violence to suppress the Ghost Dance at Lakota reservations Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, and Standing Rock.
The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was signed on September 17, 1851 between United States treaty commissioners and representatives of the Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations. Also known as Horse Creek Treaty, the treaty set forth traditional territorial claims of the tribes.
The Standing Rock Reservation lies across the border between North and South Dakota in the United States, and is inhabited by ethnic "Hunkpapa and Sihasapa bands of Lakota Oyate and the Ihunktuwona and Pabaksa bands of the Dakota Oyate," as well as the Hunkpatina Dakota. The Ihanktonwana Dakota are the Upper Yanktonai, part of the collective of Wiciyena. The sixth-largest Native American reservation in land area in the US, Standing Rock includes all of Sioux County, North Dakota, and all of Corson County, South Dakota, plus slivers of northern Dewey and Ziebach counties in South Dakota, along their northern county lines at Highway 20.
The Hunkpapa are a Native American group, one of the seven council fires of the Lakota tribe. The name Húŋkpapȟa is a Lakota word, meaning "Head of the Circle". By tradition, the Húŋkpapȟa set up their lodges at the entryway to the circle of the Great Council when the Sioux met in convocation. They speak Lakȟóta, one of the three dialects of the Sioux language.
The Rosebud Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in South Dakota, United States. It is the home of the federally recognized Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who are Sicangu, a band of Lakota people. The Lakota name Sicangu Oyate translates as the "Burnt Thigh Nation", also known by the French term, the Brulé Sioux.
Touch the Clouds was a chief of the Minneconjou Teton Lakota known for his bravery and skill in battle, physical strength and diplomacy in counsel. The youngest son of Lone Horn, he was brother to Spotted Elk, Frog, and Roman Nose. There is evidence suggesting that he was a cousin to Crazy Horse.
The Oglala are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the United States.
James McLaughlin was a Canadian-American United States Indian agent and inspector, best known for having ordered the arrest of Sitting Bull in December 1890, which resulted in the chief's death and contributed to the Wounded Knee Massacre. Before this event, he was known for his positive relations with several tribes. His memoir, published in 1910, was entitled, My Friend the Indian.
Arnold Short Bull, a member of the Sičháŋǧu (Brulé) Lakota tribe of Native Americans, instrumental in bringing the Ghost Dance movement to the Rosebud Reservation.
Caroline Weldon was a Swiss-American artist and activist with the National Indian Defense Association. Weldon became a confidante and the personal secretary to the Lakota Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull during the time when Plains Indians had adopted the Ghost Dance movement.
Spotted Elk, was a chief of the Miniconjou, Lakota Sioux. He was a son of Miniconjou chief Lone Horn and became a chief upon his father's death. He was a highly renowned chief with skills in war and negotiations. A United States Army soldier, at Fort Bennett, coined the nickname Big Foot – not to be confused with Oglala Big Foot.
Eagle Woman That All Look At was a Lakota activist, diplomat, trader, and translator, who was known for her efforts mediating the conflicts between white settlers, the United States government, and the Sioux. She is credited with being the only woman recognized as a chief among the Sioux.
Jaw/Ćehu'pa, also known as His Fight/Oki'cize-ta'wa, was a Hunkpapa (Húŋkpapȟa) Lakota Winter count keeper and Ledger art artist